On the Organizing Role of the Workers Party

In this article we raise some issues concerning the organizational role of the Party and the importance of all class conscious and active workers taking a hand in the work of building the Party.

I.

It is only through organization that the working class can translate its political unity into a material force. The Workers Party is a voluntary union through which those who take up the independent program of the working class consciously join together. Through the Party, the workers create a real unity of will and action and carry on the organized, systematic fight for the realization of the program of socialism and communism.

The very social conditions in which the workers find themselves as well as their entire experience in the class struggle teach the need for organization. The need for organization is as fundamental as the recognition of the commonality of interests amongst the workers and vast majority of the people and the need for collective effort and common struggle. Only those who like to complain but stay on the sidelines without lifting a finger can ignore the elemental responsibility to help, in one way or another, to build up the
organized, collective life of the party of the working class. In a similar way, today, all those who see the need to come out against the reactionary, anti-social agenda of monopoly capital immediately aspire for the unity of the people and see the need to build a real, organized expression of this unity.

From the very beginning of our work, we have striven to unite all those who take up the cause of the emancipation of the working class into one Party, one collective devoted to the common struggle. Our experience is that a real unity of will and action is strengthened only in the course of carrying forward the decisive political tasks of the day - of struggling to change the political situation in favor of the working class and overcoming any and every obstacle in the way.

The need for organized work applies not only to Party members but also to friends and supporters. There are many factors which influence an individual's level of participation and various reasons why, at a particular time, certain individuals are unable to join the Party. This is why next to the party organization itself, we pay great attention to organized activity around the Party - to building up distribution networks for The Worker, to organizing discussion and study groups and consultative forums on a regular basis. The key is for everyone to be empowered to participate in an organized and systematic way.

II.

The Party's militant and unified activity – the most conscious and organized expression of the independent class aims and program of the workers – plays a tremendous organizing role within the working class.

While the very conditions and aspirations of the workers impel them towards independent politics and socialism, this program does not emerge spontaneously. It is through the political struggle led by the Party – a struggle carried out in a unified way amongst ever broader sections of the people – that space is created in which the workers can rally around their own class banners. The Party's organized political activity is like a crystal in a saturated solution, propelling wider and wider sections of the people into active struggle. To insure the fullest possible participation, the Workers Party always pays the utmost attention to delineating the key political tasks, carrying out the maximum political mobilization of all its supporters and friends and waging a tenacious struggle to implement these tasks.

The experience of the Workers Party is that, precisely because we acted in unison and with consistency amongst broad and varied sections of the people, we have been able, time and again, to bring relatively large numbers of people into active political life. This is how we worked to merge many fronts of the anti-war, anti-militarist struggle into a common anti-imperialist movement, how we have consistently created new space for socialism and communism and how we are developing our work in the Campaign for Economic Rights, etc. The organization of the Party in all sectors and fronts of the working class and popular movement and the development of its common line of march is a decisive and galvanizing force.

The organization of the Party is also necessary to prevent various on-going struggles of the people from succumbing to spontaneity. The capitalist class employs huge forces with the aim of disintegrating and liquidating all fronts of the class struggle - the trade union struggle, the anti-racist struggle, the movement for democratic renewal, etc. and so forth. The organization of the Party is a decisive means through which the most dedicated and active fighters can get together to lead the fight against the forces of disunity and liquidation and assist the people in consciously working out the strategy and tactics of their movement. In various areas and fronts of struggle, it is necessary for the Party to set-up specific organizations which empower the activists and workers to take these matters into their own hands. Such Party organizations are essential not only to protect the immediate interests of the movement but also to orient it as part of the conscious and systematic movement for emancipation.

Through its work in varied fronts of the struggle, the Party organization becomes an important school through which the workers can assimilate the multi-faceted experience of the activists, giving the Party and the class an ever-broader view of the class struggle. Through this process, the collective thought and action of the Party becomes an important part of class consciousness of the workers. For example, through the experience of the Workers Party, activists learn how to wage the ideological struggle, master the tactics of united fronts and alliances, gain experience in the struggle against liberalism and social-democracy, etc. The experience of the Party in building a collective devoted to the common struggle belongs to the entire working class.